Bekiskan Fire

Bekiskan Fire is a lost technology which the ancient Bekiskapan used to repel predators, to burn their dead, and to inflict catastrophic damage upon their enemies. It was developed in the first century of the Earth-665 iteration of reality, and was purported to have been supernatural in nature. Whatever its origins, however, the secret to creating it was lost when a Calamity destroyed the universe and scattered the survivors across the post-apocalyptic paradise of Eden.

First Age conspiracy theorists posited that the Bekiskapan’s broken promise to their triceratops goddess was the reason the universe ended when it did. The fires born of the eternal flame were not meant to be used as weapons of war.

Utility

The fire was used primarily in two areas: protection and cremation. Fires seemed to keep the dinosaurs away, perhaps even better than the magic of the rivers where Bekiskas invented stone skin. And funeral pyres lit by Bekiskan Fire burned so hot they left no trace of the dead in their wake—something that shouldn’t even be chemically possible.

Beyond those initial uses, however, the Bekiskapan eventually discovered a whole host of other applications. Some of these applications were seen as relatively harmless. Illuminating your home with the sacred fire wasn’t hurting anyone, nor was cooking your Sunday dinners. But once the military got permission to use it, then all bets were off.

The most controversial weapon they developed was a 66 lb incendiary ball they launched from their catapults. During one particularly brutal sack, a conflagration set off by one of these balls ended up killing nearly 10,000 people—more the half the place’s population. Protestors rallied across the empire, eventually managing to get the damned things banned, but the citizens of Meskera never again loved their overlords as they used to.

Manufacturing

Each Bekiskan settlement kept its own communal fire burning near the main gate, and it was from these communal fires that all other flames were born. The communal fires were themselves the children of a great fire which burned in the capital, a fire which was said to have been sparked by the original torchbearers of myth and legend.

How much of the story is true is lost to history. What is certain is that by the fourth century of Earth-665, the Bekiskapan no longer knew how to create the fire themselves. The only way to create more of it was to go back to the sources they already had. Trouble is: the flames grew less pure with every passing generation. Only fires born of the great cauldron in the capital were truly everlasting. Second-, third-, and fourth-generation fires were weaker and shorter-lived.

And this is why the empire’s weapons manufacturers all operated out of the capital. They wanted the best flames they could get, after all.

Inventor(s)

The Bekiskapan

Access & Availability

Lost Technology

Complexity

Extreme

Discovery

Prehistory (Disputed)